


Winter's Child

by theragingstorm



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Elsa's Birthday which was two months ago but who cares, Gen, Pre-Canon, canonverse, non-graphic references to childbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 01:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3362534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theragingstorm/pseuds/theragingstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief look at the circumstances surrounding Elsa's birth, the first three years of her life, and the birth of her sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter's Child

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to celebrate Elsa's birthday on December 21 last year. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, and I tried to write in a different style than I usually do.

On the day Princess Elsa was born, blizzards howled down on the kingdom of Arendelle. Snow pelted and buried anyone unfortunate enough to be caught outside. The winds shrieked like enraged wildcats as they blasted the houses and mountains. The sun vanished early as if frightened by winter's ferocity, plunging the kingdom into the the darkness of the longest night of the year.

In all, it was a most inauspicious time. Naturally, when the queen went into labor towards the time when the sun started to go down, the gossips' tongues swiftly began to wag.

"I do hope the child won't be taken by the frost giants," murmured the loyalists to the old gods.

"Satan will drag it down to his own frigid Hell," fretted the ever-worried Christians.

"It'll freeze to death, plain and simple," declared the ones who'd decided that science and reason would be their religion.

The king himself had often worried about those would whisper about Arendelle's monarchy in the past. That day especially, with his wife suffering in labor and his unborn child at stake, their words lingered in his mind.

What if something did go wrong?

What if the brutal cold did harm the mother and child?

Could the frequent whispers of those that he'd scorned and derided out in the open come true in some way?

Queen Idun, however, currently had no room in her head for worry or speculation. Nothing except the task in front if her held any importance at all.

"Just keep pushing, Your Majesty," she heard through her haze of pain. "The baby's nearly there; keep pushing."

"Is it normal for it to take this long?"

"Oh stop fussing, Birgitta. Sometimes it takes much longer than this. Besides, this is the first birth; it's supposed to be difficult."

"But it's dark as well as cold. Isn't that a bad thing for a newborn?"

"Quit your cawing, you silly girls! The child is coming. Are you midwives or are you crows?"

"Right, sorry'm. Push, Your Majesty, push!"

After the searing pain of the birth was over, the queen couldn't help but feel a bit...confused over the tiny creature that the midwife and her assistants held and examined. Was the child not supposed to cry? Was it not supposed to have red skin instead of skin as pale as fresh snow? Was there something wrong?

Oh, yes, she accepted the swaddled bundle that was her newborn daughter. Yes, she cradled the baby, gazing into her uncanny ice-blue eyes and stroking her tufts of strange white hair. Yes, she cried alongside her husband as their old friends Kai and Gerda exclaimed that they'd never seen such a beautiful child.

But the queen, for the first time, felt fear stir in her heart. It would not, by any measure, be the last time.

However, it would be a long time before the little princess was questioned again. She grew and developed at just the same rate as a normal child, so that even the suspicious worrywarts relaxed. And why not? For a child born on the darkest night of winter, she was a darling. Absolutely lovely, charmingly intelligent, perfectly well-mannered. She seemed a normal --if delightful-- little girl.

This perception was shattered at Princess Elsa's first birthday. No one was entirely sure how it had all happened. All anyone outside the castle heard were vague half-stories mentioning a ruined chocolate cake, out-of-control candles, and some sort of panic attack from a terrified princess.

Not even the servants who scraped the ice from the castle's walls knew the truth. Even then they were sworn to secrecy. Fear had already began to worm its way back into the heart of the kingdom.

Ice.

Snow.

A baby girl born on the winter solstice.

"Elsa, you know we love you no matter what...right?"

The child was steeped in ignorance, as all small children were. But she knew that the worry and panic that had been caused at her birthday party had somehow stemmed from her. Unusually selfless for a child, she instantly blamed her outburst, and thus her...difference, as her parents had put it.

That was how a child who could barely speak yet began to blame herself for her parents' worries. For a time, she lost her previous happiness and playfulness that she'd had. This only fueled her parents' worries, and in turn fueled the little girl's own. Unhappy parents almost always make for an unhappy daughter.

This cycle might have continued for a long time afterwards.

Except for one thing.

The winter princess normally hated the summer, with the constant bright light and intolerable heat that it brought, but in the future, she would always bless the ridiculously sunny day in June that her fate changed forever.

This time, all the omens were right. The event itself went much more easily. Everyone cooed and fussed much more over this new squirmy, noisy wildcat of a girl than they had over the still and quiet baby born in winter.

Was she jealous?

Not one whit.

Staring down at her flesh and blood that she had nothing in common with, the winter's child felt all of her fear melt inside of her. Perhaps this meant that she would never be a proper child of winter. But in the face of the love that she felt for the summer's child, she didn't care.

 

\--Fin--


End file.
